Is your homeowners insurance going up?

[RosieTR]

My MIL was peeved that her homeowner's insurance went up by about $200 this year. She blames it on the folks living in riskier areas (wildfire/flood risk) driving up her homeowners. We have not received our bill for ours this year yet, though I suppose it's more noticeable when it's not bundled in with the PITI most mortgage servicers do. Since we had to make 2 claims in 5 years on our (thankfully no longer owned) house in Phoenix, I will not be surprised if our rates go up. I don't know if insurance does retroactive increases or not, based on claims in the past. Since there were a lot of claims in CO in the last two years, I don't know how much that will affect us either, or if that's really what caused MIL's increase. For folks everywhere who live in potential floodplains, the story is rather grim (http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/AP-IMPACT-Flood-insurance-increases-still-a-peril-5343148.php). It appears that changes to the flood insurance program will eventually cause flood insurance to be beyond the average homeowner's reach. I don't know as there's any good answers, either. It would totally suck to live somewhere and know that in a few years you won't be able to afford it. The floodplain maps have changed and are changing due to climate change and other factors (better mapping, actual floods that demonstrate precisely where the floodplain is, weather events that change the floodplain, etc) so it's also possible that people bought homes somewhere that weren't then in the floodplain, or were in the floodplain but not assessed that way then. OTOH, keeping insurance rates artificially low via federal subsidies just encourages people to continue to live there, or increasingly live in/near flood-prone areas. After all, living near water often increases property value until the next flood or hurricane. But having your home involved in a flood can be anything from a hassle to catastrophically life-changing (or life-ending in the worst case scenario). But, most houses face some type of potential natural disaster, so is it fair to single out some types of disasters vs others, or prevent all but the very rich from living in certain areas? Maybe that has to do with actuarial tables, however: the chances of Joplin MO being taken out by another tornado may be far less than the chances of the Jersey shore being taken out again by a near-hurricane. I have no idea.

[Spartana]

Here in Calif your home owners policy covers just house-related fires (electrical type things) and stuff like thefts and broken water pipe flooding, etc... It doesn't cover natural disasters like earthquake damage, flooding from mudslides or landslides or 'natural" causes, or wildfires. You have to buy separate policies for those things and, last I heard, you couldn't even buy flood or wildfire policies here - only earthquake. So I have my basic homeowners policy, an earthquake policy that has a high deductible ($15,000) and a million dollar personal liability policy (umbrella). None of them have gone up this last year though and are all fairly low cost individually. We had some recent mudflows here last week as well as wildfires, and those with damaged homes are SOL. I look at having insurance (and I guess you could include life and car insurance in that too) as part of my "emergency preparedness" planning and worth the cost. Nothing likely ever to happen but liike to be covered just in case!

[Gardenarian]

Mine hasn't gone up. We recently cancelled our earthquake insurance. It has such a high deductible, and the location and structure of our house make it unlikely that we'd ever use it.

[mamalatte]

Mine went up quite a bit, in fact, so much so that I called the company (USAA) to find out what was up, since I had initially picked them in part because of having very low prices. The person on the phone told me rates had gone up quite a bit in my state due to there being a lot of claims for damage resulting from ice (I guess maybe frozen/burst pipes and the like?).

I thought it was surprising that the person on the 1-800 line actually had access to and was able to quickly look up this information.

[Yarrow]

Mine went up a lot! Not happy about that. After talking to my insurance agent there seems to be no reason for it other than rising replacement costs... I've never had a claim of any sort.

[goldensmom]

Yes. Our home insurance almost doubled and we were told that it was due to claims paid out in the midwest last year (we pay annually). We've never filed a claim in 30 years. We raised the deductible but it is still high. Our auto insurance also increased by $400 (annually) and were told it was an across the board increase. Same thing, no claims.